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Your Brain and Body Were Built To Heal Trauma
While a therapist can help guide your healing process, they are not the expert on you. You are.
You know yourself best.
Trust your instincts.
Trust your inner knowing.
What Is EMDR?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) was developed over 35 years ago by Francine Shapiro. Its purpose is to activate your brain and body’s natural healing process. Just as your body knows how to heal a cut, your mind knows how to heal from trauma. EMDR helps you access this innate self-healing ability.
Do What scares you
I have lived with daily, irrational fears for decades. At certain points, they were so intense that they crippling. I’m sharing this because I don’t want anyone who struggles like this to feel alone.
I also want you to know: many of my fears were not real. They were not happening now. They were echoes from the past.
What was I afraid of?
I was afraid to open my mail.
I was afraid to pay my bills even when I have the money to pay them.
I was afraid to do my dirty dishes or pick up the pile of clothes on the floor.
I was afraid to respond to a text or email.
I was afraid to go to bed at night.
And I was deeply afraid that people were mad at me or would suddenly ghost me.
The Daily Mind Field of PTSD
I wish more people understood what it’s like to be a trauma survivor.
Not just the textbook definition, but the moment-to-moment experience.
The way trauma can turn ordinary life into a psychological minefield, or what I call a mind field.
What does PTSD actually feel like, day to day?
It can mean always being alert, never relaxing.
Not on Sundays. Not at night. Not with people. Not alone.
Many of my patients struggle with sleep. Imagine not sleeping through the night for decades.
They stay busy to avoid what’s underneath, immersing themselves in work, caregiving, relationships, or substances.
When something feels off: let your body be the guide
When something feels off, let your body be the guide. Trust your instincts. Lean inward.
I Survived the Trauma—Now What Do I Do About My Inner Bully?
Do you ever feel a wave of shame after speaking up? Are you afraid you’ll be punished for expressing your needs or making a mistake? Do you still hear words like “difficult,” “bad,” “stupid,” or “brat” echo in your mind—long after childhood? Maybe you avoid conflict, people-please to keep the peace, or physically shrink in the presence of your boss or angry people.
These may be the lasting effects of abusive relationships. Many survivors internalize the messages of their past, and long after the abuse ends, they continue to turn that judgment inward. I call this the inner bully.
When Procrastination Is Trauma: A New Lens on Avoidance
Procrastination is often dismissed as laziness, lack of discipline, or a bad habit. But for many trauma survivors, it’s one of the most chronic, shame-filled, and debilitating struggles they face every day.
It can feel irrational, self-defeating, even humiliating. Clinicians sometimes minimize it too, treating it as a simple behavioral issue rather than a complex, protective, and adaptive strategy rooted in the past.
The word itself comes from the Latin procrastinare, meaning “to postpone until tomorrow.” Popular self-help literature from the 1970s and 1980s framed procrastination as a moral failure, a sign of laziness or lack of productivity. But what if we understood it through a trauma-informed lens?